How To Be Master Procrastinator (Read This Later!)

Here’s a quick question to ask yourself: what have you not done this week that you planned to?

The reality is that most people procrastinate for a wide variety of reasons.

The first major one is lack of interest. In other words the task really doesn’t appeal to your values. It may be a chore such as reconciling your finances or sweeping the floor. You know it’s a necessary task but you can’t bring yourself to do it until you are right up against the wall!

To remedy this, examine your values and beliefs and then see if they serve your intentions. Examine your self talk about these tasks: instead of saying ‘oh no not the floor again’ say ‘great – the floor needs cleaning again’ – change the negative thought to a positive one.

The second reason is a deeper one, and that is you actually fear the task you have to do. For instance you have a fear of talking to strangers but need to make a phone call to a stranger. The fear itself is what is stopping you or holding you back.

If you have problems with fear there are plenty of ways to deal with it.

At a superficial level, get into the habit of positive affirmations about what you feel. For example if it is a fear of public speaking, create an affirmation like ‘It is (day/date/time) and I am on the podium at (venue) and I am totally captivating the audience.’

Other fears may be more problematic, such as phobias. With these you can consult with a psychologist, hypnotist of NLP practitioner.

There are even some easy to use audios available for such issues as self confidence, limiting beliefs and unwanted fears.  Some are totally free, others a little more expensive. It depends on your budget.

A good suggestion is Hypnosis Bootcamp – an introduction to hypnosis where you get an audio every day for 7 days and a live training session. Check it out here and claim your free gift.

A third reason for procrastination is indecision. Essentially the reason for this is not having enough information to make a decision, or being unable to prioritize your goals.

In this case, as with examine your beliefs and values about the issue and determine which value is higher – that will usually determine the priority you give to one side of the issue over the other.

There is no shame in procrastinating, but it nevertheless still inhibits everyone from being the best they can be.

If you would like to watch an interesting video look at this TED talk from Tim Urban: ‘Inside the Mind Of A Master Procrastinator – quite a funny one!

Enjoy!